the little ships; photos

if we were to adopt a maritime metaphor for the IT landscape, the enterprise installations would be the supertankers while the SMB (small / medium size business) market would be an armada of smaller ships ranging from small sail boats to luxury cruise liners. the supertankers take a long time to shift course, and on the on the technology seas, they tend to watch the flotilla of more agile smaller craft for early signs of directional changes.

due to the number of craft in the SMB fleet and how they are used navigationally by the supertankers out there, it's so very important that we keep an eye to making inroads in that market. the nice thing for those promoting KDE is that unlike the supertankers, the SMB ships can be convinced to change headings by individuals with the right approach.

look around your geographic community: are there SMBs that would do well from a switch to Open Source operating system and desktops? do you know people that work there? are their application needs met by KDE and other Open Source desktop apps? if not, what are the holes we need to fill?

it is often seen as a weakness for KDE that our user base is widely spread out amongst a large number of individuals and SMBs, as traditionally that would mean a general inability to address the supertankers. but this is actually a strength in disguise as this is the perfect sort of body to start a dramatic trend in the SMB market. there are groups shaping up who can address the supertankers, but that's only part of the needed response. KDE is uniquely positioned to address the rest of the field.

this is guerrilla marketing at its best.

coming back down to earth, i added a photo albums page to my website. there are currently four albums up, including some pics from my recent trip to Berlin, Germany.